


Oliver Queen is...

by TheLastWinchesterStanding



Series: The Faulting Return of Oliver Queen [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Introspective Oliver Queen, Oliver Queen Has PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 08:56:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15288048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastWinchesterStanding/pseuds/TheLastWinchesterStanding
Summary: Oliver Queen is Alive. Or so the media thinks.Oliver's not the same boy that left Starling. He's not the man the world sees. Really, he's not sure what kind of man he is. But he does know one thing... Ollie Queen is dead.





	Oliver Queen is...

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little one-shot that struck me randomly late at night. First time posting in Arrowfandom so hopefully not too OOC.

Oliver Queen was alive.

The news banner had declared him as such only two weeks prior. The media had had a field day proclaiming the unlikely story of a castaway son of a billionaire surviving five harsh years on an unpopulated island before returning home. Thea Queen, Oliver’s younger sister, had compared them to vultures, but Oliver didn’t think so. He rather thought the reporters clamoring for his attention, reminded him more of sharks than vultures. Shark’s that had managed to catch a whiff of blood in the water. Of course, in this scenario the blood was vulnerability and Oliver just so happened to be the bleeding victim-to-be. But it wasn’t as if Oliver could blame the shark driven media. After all, they worked for the people of Starling City. And the people of Starling City _needed_ to know how their golden boy had managed to survive.

But most importantly, they _needed_ to know if he was the same Ollie Queen that had gone missing all those years ago?

Oliver was probably the only one who knew that, in actual fact, Ollie Queen had died on the Queen’s Gambit all those years ago. The man that had returned to walk like a stranger around Starling City was not the same reckless boy that had left their shores so long ago. He hadn’t been for a very long time, and truthfully, Oliver didn’t know if he could ever be him again.

That didn’t stop him from pretending though.

To the world, Ollie Queen was alive. He was the same irresponsible lovable kid he’d always been, if not a little rougher around the edges. Honestly, it seemed easier to pretend that everything was okay than to admit that Oliver was far from it. How could he tell his family – who’d been through _so much_ and were still _so_ relieved he was home – that he wasn’t okay? That the things he’d seen, the things he’d been _forced_ to do, – the things he’d _chosen_ to do – had changed him? That the Oliver Queen they loved had died at some point during the last five years. And in his place returned a man that was hollowed in the center, filled only with the need to complete his father’s last request.

In the rare moments Oliver actually allowed himself to be honest with himself, he realized that this act was not only for those around him. Truthfully, he hoped that the longer he could focus solely on his drive to right the wrongs of his father, the longer he could ignore the fact that he no longer knew _who_ _he_ _was_.

He _wasn’t_ the Ollie Queen the press loved.

He _wasn’t_ the Oliver that was, while somewhat more restrained, still recognizable to his family and friends.

He wasn’t even the vigilante known as the Hood.

Oliver was…

He was the man who woke up each morning with the smell of wet earth and the tang of iron blood in his nostrils. He was someone, who even after two weeks of being back, still felt disorientated with the constant noises, lights and _touching (oh, the touching)_ of everyday life. Oliver Queen was a man that had, over the span of five years, learned to associate any human contact as a prelude to pain. He was the man whose mind categorized everyone, _even his mother and little sister_ , as either threat or target. He was the man whose hands were drenched in blood – blood that would never wash off. He was…

He was _broken_.

Broken in a way that was unfix-able. If Oliver stopped long enough to examine all of the many broken edges that now comprised the man he’d become, he feared he’d simply shatter. Sheer momentum was all that kept him pieced together.

So, he kept moving. Oliver lied. He laughed, and smiled, and pretended that everything was as it once was. He pretended not to notice when those close to him saw through the act. Instead choosing to shrug off their concern, because honestly? After five years of hell, those he once loved were ghosts to him. It was almost like seeing an apparition of a loved one that had passed away many years before. Oliver still ached with missing them, even when they were right in front of him. After everything that had happened, after everything he’d survived, Oliver simply didn’t know how to reconnect with those close to him. All he knew was survival and violence. And no matter how much he might wish for things to be different, Oliver had learnt long ago that he couldn’t change the past. Just keep moving forward.

So, he’ll lie. He’ll laugh and he’ll smile. And every night he’ll don the Hood. He’ll honor his father’s last wish, and he’ll attempt to atone for a flawed man’s sins.

Because Oliver Queen was dead.

And the hollow creature left in his place could only keep moving – keep hoping that somewhere along the way he’ll find himself.


End file.
